"Coming up the Ulnach, sir, you saw a corrie away to the left? Well, that's Corrie-Vinnean; and the round hillock in the centre, which you must also have noticed, is a Shiän or fairy-knowe; and in all the garbh-chnochan (rough-bounds) around us, from Kinloch Leven to Ardverikie, there is no other shiän so famous as this shiän, and it is the chief palace of the fairies of all these upland wilds, and it is always occupied by a company of them. It is never altogether deserted even for a day, though many other shiäns are sometimes unoccupied for weeks together."[199]
[CHAPTER XIV.]
So numerous are the mounds that, owing to the traditions attaching to them, invite their own destruction at the hands of the archæologist, that only a limited number of them can be specified in these pages. Among these were, until recent years, two "fairy knowes," long known by that term in the adjoining countryside. They lie between the rivers Forth and Teith, about four miles to the south of Doune. One of them was broken into a good many years ago, and it is now known to antiquaries as the "Broch of Coldoch" (from the estate on which it is situated).[200] It appears to be one of those structures which form a connecting link between the open-air broch, such as that of Mousa, and the more visible "hill," such as Maes-how. It is circular in form, has the central chamber and three small chambers in the thickness of the wall; and the lower portion of a winding-stair, also in the wall, which shows it to be the remains of an inferior "Mousa." Its dimensions are like those of other "brochs," and these are such that, in this case, they evoked the remark from the writer's guide (a native of the district) that "it had never been built for men like him." This, indeed, is the remark that naturally falls from any visitor to such buildings; as the writer has noticed on several such occasions (nor can he forget that one, at any rate, of his companions, in a recent visit to "the hidden places of the Fians and fairies" in the valley of the Boyne, was debarred from inspecting these interesting works for the simple reason that the underground passage of entrance was so strait, in every way, that for him to worm himself along it, as all visitors must do, was a physical impossibility). The popular belief that such mounds were tenanted by dwarfs has no stronger testimony than the obvious fact that none but dwarfs would have thought of raising such structures; or could have properly utilized them when erected. And although the most famous of the Boyne mounds just referred to has been styled "the firm mansion of the 'Dagda'" in ancient records, and, by a modern singer,
"The Royal Brugh,
By the dark-rolling waters of the Boyne,
Where Angus Og magnificently dwells,"
yet such a "mansion" would be a most impracticable kind of abode for men of the ordinary height of modern Europeans, if any such felt disposed to imitate the "magnificence" of Angus Og.
Of this "Royal Brugh" the outward appearance is well delineated in the engraving which constitutes the Frontispiece. All that has been said as to the adaptability of Maes-how to any of the well-known fairy stories is equally applicable to this Irish "how." The Boyne mound, however, as will be seen from its measurements, is much larger than the Orkney one; though the stone structure in its interior is of much the same dimensions as the other. The interior of the "Broch of the Boyne," however, represents a much ruder and more primitive stage in such architecture, and compared with it, the Orkney "how" is a most finished and elaborate work.
This, then, is what a fairy hill, of the larger class, looks like to the outsider. And it is clear that, when its entrance is concealed, as it once was, no stranger, ignorant of such a thing as a mound-dwelling, would ever think that this innocent-looking hill was artificially made, and that the chambers within it were the residence of a family or families. One might well begin to build, and even to fell trees, upon the outer "walls" of such a "house," without knowing that such a proceeding might be resented by "the moody elfin king that won'd within the hill."